1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sterilizing apparatus for footwear, capable of sterilizing or killing harmful bacteria living in the footwear while safely and easily drying various types of the footwear. More particularly, the present invention relates to a sterilizing apparatus for footwear, in which the sterilizing apparatus includes a plane heater having a carbon fiber embedded heating paper, a pair of electrodes installed at one side of the carbon fiber embedded heating paper while being spaced from each other so as to apply electricity to the carbon fiber embedded heating paper, and insulating members stacked on upper and lower portions of the carbon fiber embedded heating paper and edge portions of which are thermally bonded to each other; a housing made of a flexible material and formed at an inner peripheral portion thereof with an insertion groove for receiving the plane heater, in which the housing has a power line receiving hole at a lower end of a bottom surface thereof, a cation generating material receiving hole at an upper end of the bottom surface thereof, and a plurality of corrugated grooves at both lateral sides thereof; an AC/DC converter having a time display section and a timer setting section; and a cation generating material fixedly inserted into the cation generating material receiving hole by means of adhesive, wherein the footwear can be dried by means of heat generated from the plane heater, the sterilizing apparatus can be easily introduced into the whole area of the bottom of long footwear, such as boots, because the plane heater and the housing have the flexible characteristics, stability of the sterilizing apparatus can be improved because the sterilizing apparatus uses AC power with the timer, and harmful bacteria charged with anions may be killed or sterilized by means of the cation generating material.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, footwear is one of body protect articles for protecting a foot of a user and includes an inner sole part for protecting the sole of a foot of the user and a body part for protecting the instep and lateral sides of the foot of the user. Such footwear is fabricated in the form of sports shoes, rubber shoes, or ordinary shoes according to materials, usage and designs thereof and is used as a living necessary.
When a person wearing the footwear walks or runs, the footwear always makes contact with the ground, so the footwear may absorb sweat from the foot of the person wearing the footwear. In addition, since the footwear is always exposed to impurities, such as dust or rainwater, the impurities are easily attached to the footwear. In this case, the footwear may become moist. If the sweat or impurities absorbed in the footwear react with microorganisms, such as bacteria, the sweat or impurities may be rotten, thereby causing the propagation of bacteria. Thus, not only is a bad smell generated from the footwear, but also various diseases, such as an athlete's foot, are caused in the foot of the person.
Meanwhile, if the impurities are attached to the surface of the footwear or the bad smell is generated from the footwear, a person washes and dries the footwear. However, if the weather is humid or rainy, it takes a long time for drying the footwear, so the person cannot wear the footwear at a time required by the person or an inner portion of the footwear may be contaminated during the drying process for the footwear due to the propagation of bacteria.
In order to solve the above problem, footwear driers have been developed and extensively used. However, most conventional footwear driers may dry the footwear using a heating unit by accommodating the footwear in a closed space (drying chamber) of the footwear drier. Therefore, the bad smell generated from the footwear may remain in the drying chamber of the footwear drier, so that the bad smell may not be completely removed from the footwear. In addition, the bad smell remaining in the drying chamber of the footwear drier may permeate into another footwear when another footwear is dried in the footwear drier.
For this reason, another conventional footwear drier having an air intake unit and an air discharge unit has been proposed. However, the conventional footwear drier represents a low drying efficiency. In addition, since the conventional footwear drier must have a size sufficient for accommodating the footwear therein, the volume of the conventional footwear drier may be enlarged, so portability of the conventional footwear drier may be degraded.
In addition, in a case of the conventional footwear drier using a nichrome wire as a heating unit, a cover is necessary to protect the nichrome wire. However, such a cover has no flexibility, so the cover cannot be bent, so that the conventional footwear drier is not adaptable for boots, military shoes or mountain-climbing boots because it cannot be introduced into the whole area of the bottom of the boots, military shoes or mountain-climbing boots.
Meanwhile, still another conventional footwear drier equipped with an anion generating unit has been proposed in order to sterilize harmful bacteria existing in the footwear by using the anion generating unit. However, the conventional footwear drier represents the low sterilization efficiency for the harmful bacteria because the harmful bacteria live in the footwear.